Postcard from Bishkek

On my recent trip up to Naryn I got a bit of a surprise … a pleasant surprise, I might add.  Normally, I don’t like surprises … but it was nice to see how things have improved. The road forms part of the main highway from Bishkek to Torugart – and as such is one […]

The Silk Road Lodge 1s 12 years old today. That is, we opened our doors to the public on 7th August, 2000. We’ll have a cake in the office, as usual, to commemorate the occasion … but as it is not exactly a kroogliy data - a round figure – I don’t think we’ll be doing […]

There are several songs about the “Perfect Day“, but the one that sticks in my mind is the one by Lou Reed from his 1972 album Transformer, (and which was the flip side of his, Walk on the Wild Side, released the same year and regraded by many people as his signature piece). I was […]

Recently, the country’s most popular newspaper, Vecherniye Bishkek, (Evening Bishkek), published an interesting infographic under the headline “What do businessmen complain about?”. Although it was called an Infographic, I am not sure to what extent it really qualified as such. Let me explain:  An infographic presents information in a visual representation, rather than in words […]

If you are an American, or happen to be in America, then you might come across references to today being Pi Day.

The kids spend an awful lot of time on the computer.  In a way, I am happy about this, after all I used to teach the subject and I know how powerful computers are, the capabilities they offer to children and the vast amount of information they can have at their fingertips thanks to sites […]

I came across a number of interesting articles about the election over the weekend, (both in Russian), comparing the number of votes won by candidates with the amount each spent as part of their campaign, which attracted the attention of the former Maths teacher in me. The first compared the cost of each vote whilst […]

Back in the days of Black and White television, (yes, that long ago), there was a popular programme on the BBC2 channel called “Call my Bluff!”.   It first appeared in 1965, (in black and white) and lasted until 1988, when it was seen in colour. Call My Bluff was a panel game chaired by […]

The last Sunday in April is Statisticians Day. It’s another one of those “professional holidays” that seem to be so common here in Kyrgyzstan.  This one seems to be particularly appropriate because it often seems that here in Kyrgyzstan, statistics are given the sort of reverence normally reserved for holy writ. The word itself comes […]

For someone interested in history, I find it interesting how some dates in the year seem to attract important anniversaries whilst others seem to be bereft of them.  Take April 15th, for example, which is not only the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, (which struck an iceberg the night before), and the death […]